vorkosiganfandomcom-20200213-history
User talk:JAF1970
Hi JAF1970 -- we are excited to have Vorkosigan Wiki as part of the Wikia community! Starting a new wiki can be a big job, but don't worry, the Wikia Community Team is here to help! We have put together a few guides to getting started. They say imitation is the best form of flattery so absolutely check out other wikis on Wikia for ideas on layout, ways to organize your content, etc. We are all one big family at Wikia and the most important thing is to have fun! * Our guide to Getting Started gives you 5 things you can do right now to set your wiki up for success * We also put together some Advice On Starting a Wiki which provides a more a in-depth look at some of the important things you should consider when building a wiki * If you are new to wikis in general than we recommend checking our new user FAQ If you need help (which trust me we ALL do) you can access our full in-depth help at Help Wikia, or email us through our . Now, go edit! We look forward to seeing this project thrive! Best wishes, Catherine Munro Hello Hi, I'm Wendy, a helper with wikia. You've made a fantastic start to this wiki -- I love your logo and favicon! If you have any questions or I can help you set anything up (customized skin, templates/infoboxes, etc.) please let me know on my talk page! -- Wendy (talk) 01:06, 19 November 2008 (UTC) Past tense vs. present There are good arguments to be made for having all in-universe articles be in past tense. For one, it makes presentation consistent across the board. Secondly, it saves significant updating effort if, say, Aral Vorkosigan dies in the next book, or Sergyar mysteriously blows up. Most of the larger sci-fi wikis do it that way. Yrfeloran 07:34, 27 November 2008 (UTC) :No. Besides, characters are in the past until their current status in Diplomatic Immunity. Should anything happen to a character, the talk page will be changed. Simple. JAF1970 07:37, 27 November 2008 (UTC) ::Eh, I can't say I agree but I suppose I won't argue it right now. Yrfeloran 23:19, 29 November 2008 (UTC) Cross-wiki efforts What do you think about talking to these people? While they're doing it for a MUSH, we seem to be working slightly in parallel right now and maybe can combine efforts. Yrfeloran 23:19, 29 November 2008 (UTC) :Let's work on this wiki for now and not be distracted. 23:20, 29 November 2008 (UTC) Hi! It's awesome to see someone working on this! When we started in October, we were a bit surprised to find that there wasn't a Vorkosi wiki out here, especially given how active the fandom has been in the past. We might pop in now and again when our information would feed your information - ours will be focused on the world as it was before Mad Yuri's war, as that's where our game will be set, so the info will be a little different. You're also quite welcome to steal note-taking efforts if you like. We're trying to cite as we go. Mine is here. I imagine you'll run into the same problem that we did, though - the further you get into the books, the harder it is to convince yourself to take notes instead of just reading! I imagine that you're also aware of the other resources out there to build off of - maps, timelines, etc. Wikipedia also has several very, very good Vorkosi entries that you can crib from. We're slowly building a list of useful links here. Good luck! - Briseis 17:38, 24 December 2008 (UTC) Hi! Glad to see someone is working on a wiki for the Vorkosigan universe. You're welcome to use my notes (http://hotv.wikia.com/wiki/Teza%27s_Notes) or pull information from the pages I've made -- http://hotv.wikia.com/wiki/Weapons, a lot of the Nexus pages. I'd be glad to help out with yours, too, when I get a chance. If nothing else, it is a great excuse for a (re)reread. Hotv-teza 17:33, 24 December 2008 (UTC) Things I want to do Hi, I'm a new editor though I have a bit of experience in the mediawiki world elsewhere. I want to create some pretty templates to put some of the articles in order, as well as add some more content. Is it OK to edit the front page? The wiki is kind of devoid of an entry point as it is, it's kind of hard to get started with browsing the wiki. --JeevesMkII 20:21, 23 March 2009 (UTC) :Well, I've been hard at work on something, and am just returning to do editing in a few days, but sure, feel free to improve the Wiki. 20:26, 23 March 2009 (UTC) Hello to you, too! I usually remember to log in, but there are a few times I've been called "contributor" because I forgot to do so. (I don't mind the first one at all, when I created a page, because I'd just as soon kill that one and make a replacement with a better title.) I could use some help here and there -- I'm in the middle of a bit of a research project (a bit reading by time order starting from Shards of Honor, currently in A Civil Campaign, and have 70 pages of moderately dense word document notes on various topics from the books; I'll come back to Falling Free and Dreamweaver's Dilemma when I finish the main sequence) and I'm looking to put large chunks of it into the wiki. So far, I've gone over most of the planets and a few Jacksonian institutions and people, but I'm still working out how to connect my notes to pages that need work. One question -- so far, I'm avoiding using guilty knowledge about Captain Vorpatril's Alliance. Is that correct to do? There are things I'd like to trim from the wiki, but I don't think I have that right (e.g. there are two categories, 'Planets' and 'Vorkosigan Saga Planets'; I arbitrarily picked 'Planets' to hook my planet work up to, but I'd be willing to switch to the other category if that one is deemed more correct. I expect it'd be best to have just one category. I have lots of other questions, but I don't want to drown you. KarenHunt (talk) 12:27, August 26, 2012 (UTC)KarenHunt Hello again... I've been going through the site adding and modifying articles, but I can't create new categories (at least I don't think I can do such a thing). There are several that I'd like to have added: Mercenary Fleets, Jackson's Whole, Ships, and Medical Technology (to go under Technology). There are probably others that I've forgotten that I want, but these are plenty for a start. Any chance you could add them or tell me how I might do so myself? Also, I've marked several pages for deletion - in each case, it's because there's another article with almost the same name that I consider to be "the more correct one". I've also renamed the article "preoles" to "proles" and fixed up the references, but searches still show preoles. Is there some sort of site-updating that should be done to change this? Thanks for any help you can give, KarenHunt KarenHunt (talk) 15:15, January 1, 2013 (UTC) I'm retyping my reply because I'm not sure how "Talk" works - do i respond to you by adding to your post on my Talk page, or do I write on yours? (So I end up doing both...) Actually I did figure out how to work categories, and I've made about a dozen new ones (the most recent is Quaddies, though I only have three entries for it so far - there are about six more I'm planning to write as time permits). I'm not yet as consistent with the past tense as I'd like to be, though I've been moving more solidly towards it lately. (I need to redo some of the book plot summaries to get the tenses taken care of, but at least there's a frame to build on now.) I also figured out how to get the category listings to put the names in alphabetical order "DEFAULTSORT". Content so far is that I've added about 180 articles to the site, with probably about another 50 - 100 "important" articles yet to do (and another 100 less important ones that'll probably wait a bit). Working on the quotes, but some article topics have too little to trouble with (like "biotic glue"). If the book articles can be made "right enough", it'd be nice to trim "Vorkosigan Saga" down a bit -- it's a very long article. Thanks, KarenHunt (talk) 19:42, March 10, 2013 (UTC) I've been thinking about the past tense/present tense issues a bit, and I don't think it would be that good an idea to try to force all the articles into the past tense. The main problem that I see on the site is that there are still a fair number of articles that mix their tenses - some sentences using present and others using past (and occasionally sentences that mix themselves up). I can see why one might say "only past" or "present for anything that probably won't go away, otherwise past", but right now, I don't think there's a point in fighting. The site needs contributions more than it needs a consistent verb tense decision. (Though it's coming along; I figure there are only about 50-100 articles that "must" get written at this point, and another 100 that would be nice to add.) KarenHunt (talk) 11:36, March 20, 2013 (UTC) I think it's best to stick with past tense. For one, all of the novels are written in the past tense. JAF1970 (talk) 17:51, April 11, 2013 (UTC) I won't complain, though I won't make updating the articles' verb tenses my highest priority. I do have plans to convert the article on _Barrayar_ (novel) to past tense and to expand its plot summary to include more details. I'm guessing that a result that's about the length of the other book summaries should be not too far wrong.That said, I have converted the other book articles' plot summaries over to past tense (both ones I'd written and ones written by others), and they definitely are better that way than in present. 20:45, April 11, 2013 (UTC) That was me... KarenHunt (talk) 20:46, April 11, 2013 (UTC) What would you think of expanding to Lois's fantasy worlds? They'd have a different category... KarenHunt (talk) 12:02, November 7, 2013 (UTC) No. It'll be too much to incorporate those books, especially since there's unrelated. The Vorkosigan Saga is a big enough task. JAF1970 (talk) 14:24, November 24, 2013 (UTC) Makes sense. Though I think we're almost done with Vorkosigan Saga. :) I've got about thirty minor characters to add, then I'll make another pass through The Vorkosigan Companion to see if there are articles worth adding. At that point, it's mostly just visiting the articles to see which ones could benefit from tweaking (spelling, grammar, layout, category choice) KarenHunt (talk) 14:27, November 24, 2013 (UTC) Vorkosigan Wiki is far from finished, IMO. If I can find the time, I'll update it heavily. JAF1970 (talk) 14:54, November 24, 2013 (UTC) I suppose it all depends on what you're trying to achieve. Certainly there are also about 20 articles to delete, and some of the oldest articles like Vorkosigan Saga could use to be fixed up (trimmed in that article's case), and the book articles could use more consistent choices of level of detail (all this in addition to what I stated above as needing doing), but most of the core information that a user might want to look up is present in some article or another. The recent effort of adding lists and fixing up the categories has done much to bring it together as a more easily searchable site, as well. What further changes are you looking to make? KarenHunt (talk) 15:01, November 24, 2013 (UTC) Hello &Thanks Hi JAF, Thanks for your nice message. But I really can't get the hang of the newer wiki editing. I always use the "old" method when I go to Wikipedia. (Must be Barrayaran influence or something;-} ) And wouldn't ya know it, my 1st contribution I had to undo due to my own error! 22:25, November 28, 2013 (UTC) "Let's just… see what happens." I was surprised not to see Gregor's favorite (when appropriate) strategy on Quotables, so I added it. My books are all packed away, though, so I can't give cites. I'd especially like to quote and reference : "Let's just…" : Oh, no! Ivan thought, he's going to say it! : "…see what happens." --Mark Mandel, proprietor, Cracks and Shards 20:00, February 8, 2014 (UTC) It's a relatively new article, with lots of room for more quotables to add. The ref you're giving is the one in A Civil Campaign, when Dono Vorrutyer has just convinced Gregor to let him try for the Countship. KarenHunt (talk) 20:03, February 8, 2014 (UTC) Thanks for not minding me getting admin for the site, and thanks for new edits. The site's nearly got all the articles I can think of to add (the most complex one still missing is a "Vorkosigan Saga Translations" with languages and book covers - that's going to need some research), though there are still lots of places for fixups to do and quotations to add. KarenHunt (talk) 12:13, April 4, 2015 (UTC) : You've kept the Wiki from dying on the vine while I've been dealing with stuff, so I can't think of anyone more deserving of Admin status. I'm still the Founder, I'll enjoy that title in the meantime. :p JAF1970 (talk) 12:15, April 4, 2015 (UTC) I guess you've seen I'm trying to achieve a brown/silver look for the website. I'm not sure I have the artistic skills to produce a good effect - do you have talents along those lines? I have mixed feelings about the background pattern/color in particular. KarenHunt (talk) 00:46, April 8, 2015 (UTC) I have copied and deleted... Will send message soon. KarenHunt (talk) 01:24, April 8, 2015 (UTC) Yes, a Horus Eye is a good addition - I like the picture you added! I currently am working from a list of about 30 items that need adding, and I'm hitting "random article" a bunch to find bad ones that I've not kept track of. At some point I'll get more systematic and walk through the categories to find places that need work. The site's coming along; I hope to have it filled out by the time the next book is published. KarenHunt (talk) 16:06, May 16, 2015 (UTC) Still thinking about Eye of Horus. I'm not sure a separate article is useful (if I were to try to write one, I'd mostly take info from wikipedia's article on Eye of Horus). On the other hand, a link to that article, provided in the ImpSec one, might do well enough. (so basically take the EoH phrase, and make a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_Horus). Any particular thoughts of how an article might work? KarenHunt (talk) 16:50, May 16, 2015 (UTC) Somebody put a nasty change into the article for "bioengineered apoptotic prokaryote" a bit ago. I've reverted the article, but I think there's going to be a need for more active watching of the site. KarenHunt (talk) 20:54, May 19, 2015 (UTC) Yep, sure was! And I guess you got emails for each and every page I changed! >:-) hehehe I've been going through the site and improving the references, trying to make them more organized and to have them give chapter as well as book as much as feasible. After I finish that, there are more quotes to put into the QOTD and the Quotables page, and there are about 16 characters that could benefit from larger and better sections (Biography, Personality and traits, actual use of reference tags). And I found yet one more bit of technology that I've failed to make an article for - personnel scanners and anti-personnel-scanners on belts. (Brothers in Arms) I mostly figure at that point the site is something like done until the next book comes out. I might want a Translations article like in wot's wikia, but it'll be pretty hard work putting something like that together. KarenHunt (talk) 20:48, July 20, 2015 (UTC) Spoiler warning sounds good - I wasn't sure what exactly to put, but it could probably go under the announcements header on the main page. I'd been figuring on two months, but six is probably kinder to readers. There've been a few edits here and there using knowledge from the newest tale, but nothing spoilery yet. For the book article, I have a note that I don't plan to put up a plot summary until after the book is really published. Probably a more complete no-spoilter note can go there, as well. I hope you're having better luck with jobs since then, anyway. KarenHunt (talk) 23:07, November 8, 2015 (UTC) A simple "read at your own risk" comment at the top of the book article works for that article, but things get tricky with the various other articles in the site, though. If all the new knowledge about Sergyar or Jole himself (or Cordelia) to the relevant articles get added, they get spoilerish as well. For now, the book article doesn't have anything that can't be found in ordinary internet searches, so maybe warnings should wait until there begins to be real info? (so I don't wait till August to start the plot summary, but as soon as I do start it, it gets the warning?) KarenHunt (talk) 23:16, November 8, 2015 (UTC) Indeed - I've been working for about a week adding to it. I'm planning to reorganize it once I've got everything together (maybe a week from now, maybe a bit more) - probably split into different articles for each language, with a miscellaneous languages for left overs. (so 8 or so articles in all). I'll add book covers where I can, and organize the same-book-republished titles to go under each cover. Right now it's a huge wall of text that still has a lot more to come. KarenHunt (talk) 01:01, June 24, 2016 (UTC) And a happy new year to you as well! KarenHunt (talk) 13:11, December 31, 2016 (UTC)